INTERNMENT AUGUST 1971

In the early hours of the 9^th August 1971 British soldiers launched operation Demetrius, the introduction of internment without trial. Internment had been employed by the Unionist Government at Stormont in every decade since the creation of the northern state as a means to suppress Republican opposition. In the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s republican suspects had been imprisoned without trial. As violence increased in 1970 and 1971 the Unionist Government again came under increasing pressure to clamp down on the activities of the IRA. By August 1971 the Stormont Government had convinced the British Government that internment offered the best method of dealing with the increasing violence, and pointed to its repeated success in previous decades. In an attempt to reduce the expected nationalist outrage a ban on all parades was announced at the same time, aimed at defusing the potential for unrest that the Apprentice Boys parade on the 12^th August posed.

Relying on outdated lists containing 450 names provided by the RUC Special Branch, the British Army swept into nationalist areas of the north and arrested 342 men. The RUC intelligence, however, was hopelessly outdated and many of those arrested had no connections with the IRA. Others, although Republican minded, had not been active in decades. Others arrested included prominent members of the Civil Rights movement. In one instance in Armagh the British Army sought to arrest a man who had been dead for the past 4 years. It appears that the rapid radicalisation of much of the norths nationalist community, and the RUCs alienation from that community in the previous 2 years, had created a large intelligence gap in RUC   files. Indeed, so out of date were the lists that within 48 hours 116 of those arrested were released. The remainder were detained Crumlin Rd prison and the prison ship The Maidstone.

Internees being transported to the Maidstone prison ship, August 1971.

Many of those active Republicans whose names were on the lists had been forewarned that internment was imminent and had gone on “the run.At dawn on 23 July 1971, 1,800 troops and RUC raided Republican houses across the north, searching for documents. This operation was viewed by many Republicans as a dry run for internment and they responded accordingly.

Remarkably no Loyalists were arrested in the operation, despite the fact that the UVF had been active since 1966. The first Loyalist internees were not arrested until 2^nd February 1973.

The reaction of the Nationalist community was furious. This anger was reinforced when news of the treatment of the internees, particularly 11 men who became known as the "hooded men" became public. This anger took the form of increased support for the IRA and the commencement of a campaign of civil disobedience that enjoyed overwhelming support within the nationalist community.

The public concern at the treatment of many of the internees led to the establishment of the Compton Commission, which reported in November 1971. This report concluded that whilst detainees had suffered ill treatment this did not constitute brutality or torture. Incidents of ill treatment included:

in depth interrogation with the use of hooding, white noise, sleep deprivation, prolonged enforced physical exercise together with a diet of bread and water.

deceiving detainees into believing that they were to be thrown from high flying helicopters. In reality the blindfolded detainees were thrown from a helicopter that hovered approximately 4 feet above the ground.

forcing detainees to run an obstacle course over broken glass and rough ground whilst being beaten.

The combination of botched arrests, stories of brutality escaping from the internment centres and the reintroduction of internment, which was viewed as a form of communal punishment and humiliation, unleashed a wave of violence across the north, with practically no military gains to offset the impact internment had on the entire nationalist community